


I was dreaming while you sat dying

by Spylace



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Fever Dreams, Groundhog Day, Hurt/Comfort, Love Confessions, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-12
Updated: 2014-04-12
Packaged: 2018-01-19 03:25:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,533
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1453690
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Spylace/pseuds/Spylace
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve suffers from a recurring nightmare.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I was dreaming while you sat dying

**Author's Note:**

> A reaction post to the Winter Soldier. 
> 
> And an old prompt I found bookmarked.
> 
> Enjoy.

He hits the water.

The Potomac is blessedly cool against his tired eyes. He is done. Steve’s finished what he started seventy years ago. Maybe this time, his death won’t be in vain. HYDRA can’t hurt them anymore. This time, it’ll be Bucky who is saved.

As he sinks, the burning wreck of the helicarrier passes overhead like a shooting star.

Steve makes a wish.

A hand reaches out.

 

“Steve, Steve, buddy. Wake up.”

He jerks forward, nearly headbutting the person leaning over him. But Steve knows this voice, he can’t not respond to it. He knows he’s dreaming when he sees Bucky, hair short and clean-shaven, face pinched with familiar concern.

“Bucky” His breathing comes out in a short staccato. He repeats helplessly “Bucky”.

A hand automatically takes his temperature. Steve closes his eyes when he feels the warm skin instead of scratched metal, flesh and bones whereas the Winter Soldier had been cold steel. He leans into the touch, a brief hum leaving his throat. Bucky steadies him. “You were tossin’ and turning.”

“Nightmare” He answers in a ragged voice. A minute ago, his best friend was about to kill him. Steve hadn’t cared. Only, Bucky was in front of him now healthy and whole like he never fell. Like Steve hadn’t failed him over and over and over again. “Am I dreaming?”

Bucky’s eyebrows crawl to his hairline. “Because if this is” He says a little heatedly. “It’s not funny.”

“No it’s not.” Bucky says agreeably. He rubs his neck. “Hey you big lug, what’s the matter with you?”

“You’re alive.” Steve replies and launches himself forward to hug him.

“Steve, Stevie, air.” Bucky grumbles. “Oh fine—must have been helluva nightmare.”

 

He takes one step outside his tent and almost has a heart attack. They are camped under a bough of pine trees. The Commandos, Jones, Dum Dum, Morita, all greet him one by one from the smoldering remains of flames. Steve remembers this and like the last time, he throws Bucky a glare for letting him sleep in this late.

Bucky looks in the other direction, a smug curl to his lip. But Steve also remembers that this is the day Bucky falls. It’s the day the Winter Soldier is born.

 

Morita fiddles with the radio as they wait for the train.

Again, Bucky jokes about the Cyclone and revenge.

Steve makes a decision. He steels his nerve and says, “I want you to sit this one out.”

All trace of humor flees Bucky’s face.

“What.” He says flatly. “Are you talking about?”

The others busy themselves. Jones comments _oh look, there’s the train_.

“It’s too dangerous.”

“You’re _kidding_.”

Bucky looks like he’s spoiling for a fight when Falsworth clears his throat, “Gentlemen, may I suggest a different setting for this argument.”

“Steve, come on—“

“That’s an order.” Steve says curtly and Bucky looks betrayed. “I’m sorry.”

He’s not.

 

“I told you to stay!”

“Then bring me up on charges!” Bucky roars, saving him at the last minute.

Steve’s breath hitches when he sees his best friend take up his shield and fire.

Bucky falls.

 

“Steve, Steve, buddy, wake up.”

“Bucky” Steve says dumbly when he sees his best friend alive and well, kneeling at his side. He folds their hands together despite the worried look. Bucky is warm, solid and best of all, alive. This is a dream, this could only be a dream, but maybe. Something whispers from the far corner of his mind. This is a second chance. “You’re alive.”

 

“Must have been helluva nightmare.”

 

“Steve, Steve, buddy—”

“I’m awake. Thank god, thank god.”

 

“Wake up.”

 

Every day is the same. Bucky falls. _No variations_ by Steve Rogers.

 

He does everything from preemptively blowing up the tracks to hogtieing his best friend under a tree. Nothing works. He even explains to Bucky and the Commandos but it never sticks. Steve can’t get drunk but after the seventeenth, eighteenth time, he tries his damnest on Dugan’s secret stash.

He and Bucky nearly comes to blows. It’s too much like facing the Winter Soldier but not—because the Winter Soldier didn’t care, he was indifferent to everything but his mission but Bucky is alive, he is angry and furious but worst of all he’s worried about Steve, oblivious to his own fate in the decade that lies ahead.

 

The nineteenth time around, he stays in bed until Bucky’s panic draws him out. His relief is palpable but he insists the Commandos finish the mission and its sounds novel enough that Steve is willing to try.

He never lets Bucky go alone again.

 

Nazi Germany was done for. HYDRA would soon follow. He leads the commandos down the mountain.

Zola does not matter he repeats even though he knows otherwise.

Bucky looks betrayed.

He takes one step forward and—

 

“Steve?”

He walks away without a word.

The train can’t be delayed. He watches from the opposite peak as the second half the train derails and falls into the ravine.

 

When he wakes up, he tells Bucky everything, all of it without stopping to breathe. At last, he asks “Buck, what did they do to you?”

 

Bucky shuts down, face devoid of all emotion.

 

Maybe he’s hallucinating.

 

Maybe he’s still in the water, the Winter Soldier chasing him into the dark.

 

“Bucky?”

 

“ _Bucky_?”

 

“I know that look.” Bucky says shrewdly after he repeats the story three or four times.

It is at times like these he misses modern conveniences. Though he never loses his voice, something about these sessions scrape him raw. He could put the Starkphone on just so he never has to say that Bucky falls.

“You’re leaving something out.”

Steve looks away.

“You don’t die.”

“You just said I fall off a train.” Bucky says reasonably.

 

“You said—“

 

“You fall. You don’t die.”

 

“I should have known. I should have looked for you.”

 

“I’m sorry.”

 

All’s quiet outside though it could just be Steve, his entire world contained within one person. He could stay like this, he is resigned. If this can keep Bucky from the monsters at the bottom of the ravine, he can suffer this day over and over to keep him safe.

“So every time...”

He grits his teeth.

“Yes”

“Steve” Bucky says with tired eyes. “You have to let me fall.”

He springs to his feet, ready to start the day again if this is what the situation’s come to—Bucky wanting to _die_ when Bucky grabs him by the arm and turns him around. “Steve you _idiot_. You can’t keep doing this to yourself.”

He breaks free.

“Watch me.”

“Oh no you don’t.”

Bucky grabs his legs because he fights dirty.

Steve falls with an undignified squawk, rolling to a heap on his bedroll. He struggles briefly when Bucky lands on top, but the fight’s gone out of him—he’s too tired. He never wants to fight Bucky again. Ever.

“Steve, Stevie, Steve” Bucky says when he fails to respond. “I fall.” He flinches and Bucky hugs him close, tucking his head under his chin like when they were children in the grips of Brooklyn winter. “It’s happened, it’s going to happen whether you, Captain America, like it or not.”

Steve lets out a sound of protest. Bucky shushes him.

“It’s going to be fine.”

“How?” Steve demands, pushing him away. “How is it okay that I _sleep_ for seventy years while you—“

“See I knew you left something out.”

“—get tortured and brainwashed—“

“Steve” Bucky interrupts. “If I become a bad guy, there’s no one else in the world I’d trust to bring me back to my senses than you.”

“But...”

“Steve, I believe you. I believe in you but this ain’t helping. You’re only hurting yourself. I’m starting to think you like being punched in the face.”

He let out a helpless laughter.

“Jerk, when did you get so smart?”

“Punk” Bucky fires back. “I actually left all my stupid with you.”

"I broke your arm." He confesses contrite, trying to commit everything to memory. Exactly like this.

"Looks like I did some damage myself." Bucky observes, fingering the holes in his uniform. 

“I love you, you know that Buck?” 

Bucky’s eyes softened.

“No, but maybe you should start with that next time around.”

“Can I kiss you?”

“You’ve never needed permission, not from me.”

Steve kisses like a drowning man. Bucky moans, threading his fingers through the belt hoops like he’s just been waiting for Steve to get it—“Steve” he breathes, butting their heads together. Steve tries to make him quiet. No sense in letting the Commandos know or god forbid, sharing but Bucky laughs and tilts his head until Steve’s got his nose buried in the wool lapels, breathing into his scent. “We’ve got a train to catch.”

He kisses him one last time.

“Hey, later, remember?”

 

Bucky falls.

 

Bucky isn’t there next time.

 

Steve wakes up and he knows it’s real. There’s music playing in the background like he’s on an elevator, waiting to be dropped off at the next floor. Except, he doesn’t have to wait does he? He taught himself that.

“On your left.” He tells Sam.

He has a date to catch.


End file.
